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The view that Apple lost its innovative edge with the sad loss of Steve Jobs has been one of the oft-repeated criticisms of the company in recent years. But this idea is based on an entirely mythological view of Apple as a company that was constantly launching ground-breaking new product categories.
The reality is a little more mundane. The Macintosh, a truly revolutionary computer, was launched in 1984. We had to wait 17 years for the next groundbreaking product: the iPod in 2001. We had to wait six years after that for the next major product category: the iPhone in 2007. And a further three years for the iPad in 2010. (If you wanted to push things a little, you could argue that the MacBook Air was also so revolutionary that it deserves to be included; if so, we’re up to five new product categories in 26 years.)
Note, too, that none of the product categories were invented by Apple. Xerox, of course, invented the graphical user interface for personal computers. There were MP3 players before the iPod; touchscreen smartphones before the iPhone; tablets before the iPad. What Apple did in each case was what the company does best: take something clunky and used only by techies, and turn it into a slick product that will appeal to the masses.
So no, Apple never has churned out revolutionary new products on an annual basis. If we’re going to assess its performance today, it has to be against a realistic background. Zac recently reminded us of Apple’s product timeline for 2015. Looking at this in the context of a company whose true history is occasionally taking a new product category and doing it better than anyone else – and in between times merely refining its existing product ranges – how did Apple do this year … ?
The Apple Watch was released 8 months ago and it has been met with a wide array of responses from users. The device presented a new dilemma for Apple. Instead of something like an iPhone, which while meant to be used daily, is not meant to necessarily be constantly sending you notifications, Apple Watch’s purpose is to keep you alert 24/7. As I’ve learned over the last 8 months, that has its own benefits and drawbacks.
Tim Cook teased Apple’s product pipeline to investors back in October 2013 by saying the company would enter new categories with releases that fall and “across 2014.” This set the expectation that the next year would include new releases in each quarter rather than staying mostly quiet until WWDC in June, then saving new iPhones, iPads, and Macs for the fall.
Perhaps that was a promise better made a year later as most new products in 2014 were once again kept for the fall, but 2015 has been one where Apple has truly released new products all across the year. So many, in fact, that it’s probably difficult to recall every single new hardware and software product without referencing the history books.
Steve Jobs famously said that people don’t know what they want until they see it. To which I’d add that sometimes we don’t know what we want until we’ve used it for a while.
I’m old enough to have been around when the first Macintosh was launched. In that case, I knew I wanted one the moment I saw it. This was how computers were supposed to work. The total cost of the Macintosh plus second floppy drive plus ImageWriter printer was a frightening amount at the time, but I didn’t care – I had to have one.
The iPad was a different story. I originally bought one intending it to be nothing more than the movie equivalent of the Kindle, yet within a very short time it became my primary mobile computing device.
The Apple Watch was different again. As someone who started out as a total smartwatch skeptic and has now been fully assimilated, I thought it might be interesting to briefly look back on that journey and also think a little about what the future might hold for the device …
Earlier today, Apple announced some of the most wide-ranging changes it has made at the senior executive level since iOS chief Scott Forstall was ousted and replaced in late 2012. Senior VP of Operations Jeff Williams was promoted to COO (Chief Operating Officer), Johnny Srouji was elevated from VP to Senior VP of Hardware Technologies, Senior VP of Marketing Phil Schiller added App Store responsibilities, and Tor Myhren is leaving the Grey Group to be VP of Marketing Communications at Apple, replacing Hiroki Asai. Let’s take a look at what each of these changes is likely to mean…
Last week, I wrote an article called The Top 10 Android Features Apple’s iOS 10 Should Steal, and — surprise — it turned out to be somewhat controversial. Over 120 comments reflected a wide range of opinions on the future direction of Apple’s mobile operating system, with most commenters agreeing that iOS should take some inspiration from Android, but only for the specific features they personally liked. Unfortunately, in keeping with our increasingly polarized society, a few particularly caustic Apple fanboys decided to go crazy, personally attacking fellow commenters who liked the ideas, the author who dared to suggest them (“poor old me“), and the very concept of taking any ideas whatsoever from Android.
On one hand, I understand where the fanboys are coming from. Some people just love whatever Apple releases and does, no matter what. Others are so emotionally or financially invested in Apple that any suggestion of potential improvement is perceived as an attack on the company’s well-being. But it’s hard to sympathize with people who freak out when Apple’s described as anything less than perfect. Walt Mossberg called out “cultists” for this behavior in his article, “It’s Not a Church, It’s Just an Apple Store,” naming it the Doctrine of Insufficient Adulation. Demanding unyielding praise is nonsensical, and ultimately unhealthy for the Apple community as a whole. Simple statistics suggest that under 0.05% of our readers fall into cultist territory, but they’re abrasive enough to turn off the other 99.95% of readers we care about.
It’s important to understand that these hard-core fanboys aren’t just a tiny minority of all iOS users — they also have fringe views relative to the general population. Reasonable people can debate the precise numbers, but Android currently powers roughly 4/5 of the smartphones out there. It’s easy to credit aggressive Android device prices, but it’s clear that Android has features that appeal to people, too. From my perspective, it’s perfectly reasonable for iOS users to want some of Android’s features — especially if they don’t want to switch to Android devices. Yes, Apple’s a great company, and yes, iOS is a great platform, but they’re not perfect. Even if you don’t like Google, there’s room to learn (and borrow) from Android…
I’ve had my Apple Watch since the day it launched on April 24th and have been wearing it everyday since. This was probably the longest I’ve had a wearable without having any hardware issues. Then my speaker blew out first thing randomly one morning…
Yes, I did all the trouble shooting steps one should do before officially being upset and frustrated: checking the volume under settings, turning the iPhone and Apple Watch off and on, and even erasing the Apple Watch setting it back to factory settings and setting it up as a new Apple Watch, even though I had a backup. After testing the sound by using timers, and trying to make phone calls from my watch, none of that worked. This meant I had a few days to really see how going without the Apple Watch would actually impact me.
Apple this year introduced several major new pieces of hardware, the iPad Pro, Apple Watch, fourth-gen Apple TV and 12-inch MacBook. Like most Apple fans, the one that had me the most excited at launch was the Apple Watch. I thought Apple Watch would have a huge impact on my daily life, but 8 months in, the new Apple device that’s actually affected by day-to-day technology usage the most is the 12-inch MacBook.
I was incredibly skeptical of the 12-inch MacBook when Apple initially announced it. As someone who types for a living, I was worried about the new butterfly keyboard being less conducive to productivity than the standard scissor keyboard. I was worried that the single USB-C port would prove to be a huge roadblock in day-to-day use. 8 months later, however, I’m entirely sold on the 12-inch MacBook and think it’s the best new product Apple introduced in 2015 and I can’t wait to see where Apple takes it in the coming years. The 12-inch MacBook has renewed my faith in the fact that Apple can still design gorgeous pieces of hardware that actually improve on and fulfill a need in the market.
Like many this morning, my first reaction to Apple’s Smart Battery Case was … what the heck? Albeit not expressed in those exact words. Seth tweeted that it seemed to be evidence that Jony Ive has left the building.
My colleague Jeremy has addressed the battery case specifically, but I think there’s a broader issue here. Apple claims to sweat the details when it comes to the design of its devices, and – a few grumbles aside – I think that’s a legitimate claim on the aesthetic front. It does go to obsessive lengths when it comes to making its devices as visually pleasing as possible. One part of that obsession is making iPhones as thin as it can.
But, to my mind, the company has an almost schizophrenic attitude here. It goes to all that trouble to make the phones as slim and sleek as humanly possible, yet it knows full well that the first thing the vast majority of owners do when they take delivery is to slip the phone into a case. Those cases substantially increase the thickness, and hide the design.
Arriving with little fanfare — much like several of Apple’s recent Apple Watch, iPhone, and iPad accessories — the new iPhone 6s Smart Battery Case appears to have been designed by Apple to make two statements:
The “smart” way to add a battery to a super-svelte iPhone is to graft it onto the back of a case like a hump, clearly identifying its battery-ness.
If you’re buying a non-Plus version of the iPhone, you’ll probably want to add an extra battery, and rather than building it into the phone itself or letting third-parties rake in the dough, Apple would like to capture the extra $99 for itself.
Having reviewed lots of iPhone battery cases, and assembled a popular guide to the best iPhone 6 / 6s Plus battery cases, I’m feeling very conflicted about the Smart Battery Case — it doesn’t seem “smart” at all. In polls and in comments, readers have clearly expressed that an Apple-developed solution to the iPhone’s less-than-full-day battery life is long overdue. But the vast majority of people have said they want Apple to improve the battery inside the iPhone, even compromising thinness, rather than requiring an external battery solution.
Since it’s rare for Apple to make a one-off accessory for a single iPhone, the Smart Battery Case strongly suggests that next year’s basic iPhone, too, will struggle to make it through a full day without assistance. And that’s not good news for iPhone users…
But after three weeks with my iPad Pro, several things have changed my mind, and I’m officially a happy convert to the larger tablet. Moreover, I have no intention of going back to the smaller iPad Air or iPad mini form factors any time soon. Here are the five things that made a big difference to me…
Apple has consistently worked at making the iPhone ever slimmer, and has been willing to make compromises to achieve that, most notably in battery-life. But with the iPhone 6 and 6s, it is close to the limit on how slim an iPhone can be – and the reason for that is the oldest piece of tech in the phone. The iPhone 6/6s is not very much thicker than the diameter of the 3.5mm headphone jack.
The latest iPod touch shows that Apple has a little more room for manoeuvre (above photo Anandtech, below iFixit).
But really not much. If Apple wants to continue the iPhone’s diet, at some point very soon it’s going to have to ditch the 3.5mm headphone socket in favor of an alternative. There are four possible options open to it … Expand Expanding Close
Trying to predict the future of technology is a risky endeavor at best, and never more so when attempting to do it with one of the most secretive companies in the field.
But never let it be said I don’t ‘fess up when my predictions don’t pan out. Two years ago, I reckoned that the MacBook Air and Pro ranges would have merged by now. When the MacBook Air was first launched, it made a lot of compromises to fit into that slim casing. But over the years, the Air got more powerful and the Pro started to make similar compromises in pursuit of a sleeker form-factor. Both went SSD, both went non-upgradable RAM, neither had an optical drive, neither had an Ethernet port.
It seemed to me then that the differences between the two ranges would continue to dwindle until there was really nothing to separate them. But as things turned out, Apple had one surprise in store for me … Expand Expanding Close
Feature Request is a new regular 9to5Mac series where authors offer their opinion on how to improve popular hardware or software products.
Before Apple even announced the oft-rumored iPad Pro, it unveiled a new version of iPad software, iOS 9, that included several new features that seemed perfect for a device with a larger screen. Sure enough, those features foreshadowed the launch of the larger, 12.9-inch iPad Pro. Zac did an excellent job last week of highlighting some of these enhancement that are great on the larger-screened device.
As Zac noted, iOS 9 includes a handful of really nice optimizations for iPad Pro. These include things such as Picture in Picture support for video and FaceTime calls, Split View and Slide Over multitasking, an enhanced keyboard, and more. While these features truly shine and highlight how much potential the iPad Pro has for professional use, I still feel like there’s a lot more Apple can do to take advantage of the larger 12.9-inch Retina display…
Having started out with my first impressions a week ago, highlighted my core questions and decided on Monday that the iPad Pro couldn’t replace my iPad Air 2 (only be an additional device), it’s time to make my decision.
I think between us at 9to5Mac we’ve been putting the tablet through its paces in a pretty comprehensive fashion! We don’t always reach the same conclusions about devices, but in this case I found myself agreeing with the bottom-line of each of my colleagues who’ve been trying it.
Dom described it as a giant Netflix machine, and it certainly is. With that huge screen and extremely loud speakers, movies and TV shows are very compelling, and – unlike a MacBook with the same size screen – you don’t feel like you’re looking at a work device.
Zac saw it as the best entertainment iPad, and I agree with that – with the single proviso that it’s just too big for comfortable ebook reading in bed. But reading ebooks on your lap is a delightful experience. Magazines are just wow. Casual web-browsing – sat on the sofa, just passively consuming content rather than planning to act on it – is a joy. In portrait mode, you can see a decent chunk of a page at a time, everything is big enough to read comfortably and it just feels like a much more relaxing experience than using a MacBook or a smaller iPad where you have to do more scrolling.
Jeremy found that it sat awkwardly between two devices – not feeling like a better alternative than either his iPad Air 2 or his MacBook Pro when it comes to either work or play. I agree 100% on the work side of the equation. I’m more sold on the play side of things, but given that I like to read in bed every night, ultimately I’d have to agree that my iPad Air 2 is a complete solution where the iPad Pro isn’t.
But it’s not just my colleagues’ views I’ve been reading, it’s yours too – in the comments on my earlier diary pieces. So let me address a couple of those before delivering my own final verdict …
Steve Jobs’ vision of a “post-PC” future really resonated with me. As a dedicated Mac and iPhone user, I was a day one fan of the original iPad, and have spent countless hours enjoying every full-sized iPad released since then. When the iPad mini came out, I happily shifted over to the smaller form factor until buying an iPhone 6 Plus, which pushed me back to full-sized iPads. Like many people, I wouldn’t want to give up my iPad, and would be thrilled if it could replace my laptop.
If any iPad had laptop replacement potential, the 12.9″ iPad Pro was it. So I was the first person in line at the local Apple Store to buy one, hoping that it would supplant either my iPad Air 2 or Retina MacBook Pro. But after a week of daily use, I’m convinced that the iPad Pro won’t replace anything, and am still trying to decide whether to keep or return it. Below, I’ll explain why…
Nobody who watched the news coverage of the terrorist attacks in Paris could fail to be moved by the scenes and the stories emerging from it. It was undeniably a horrific series of events, and it’s only human nature to want action to be taken to reduce the likelihood of future such atrocities.
But there is always a danger at such times that emotion, rather than rational thought, will drive government policy-making. I won’t get into the broader theme there, as there are more appropriate forums for that, but there is one aspect that is very much on-topic for us: the battle between Apple and governments over encryption.
There have already been unattributed reports that the terrorists in Paris used encrypted communication. I have no idea whether there is any specific evidence for that, but it would hardly be damning were such evidence to emerge: it would be frankly astonishing if they hadn’t.
There are three reasons why Apple is right to maintain that it will continue to offer end-to-end encrypted communication no matter how much governments in the USA, UK and elsewhere may protest … Expand Expanding Close
When I reviewed the 12-inch MacBook with Retina display earlier this year, my one question was this: could I possibly use such a low power machine reliably for work? For blog posting and editing, switching between chat apps and email, and keeping up with a few Twitter accounts, the single-port MacBook is totally fine, and the Retina display was an upgrade over the dated one on my old MacBook Air.
While I’d like to apply that same question to the iPad Pro, which has a slightly larger display and effectively twice the battery life of my MacBook, the difference in how iOS and OS X handle multitasking and window management currently limit my ability to apply my same workflows from the Mac to the iPad. That didn’t stop me from lusting after the iPad Pro when it hit stores last week. Despite the Pro in its name, I think the new iPad is the best content consumption tablet on the planet. Expand Expanding Close
Things have moved on rather a lot since I gave my first impressions and highlighted my core questions in choosing between my existing iPad Air 2 and the iPad Pro. Further usage of it has made it abundantly clear that the iPad Pro cannot replace a standard iPad. It’s ridiculously over-sized for reading or watching Netflix in bed, and there are other times when the smaller version was simply more convenient.
But I do still love that screen! It’s great for casual web-browsing – better than either my MacBooks or iPad Air 2. It’s fantastic for viewing photos. It’s great for ebooks so long as you’re not trying to read them in bed. Magazines are amazing. Netflix is great with the huge screen and really loud speakers. Split View makes it a genuine multi-tasking device.
So, the question now is: send the iPad Pro back, or keep both devices? I said last time that I really couldn’t see a justification for having that much cash invested in iOS devices. One commentator responded to this with “Ah, just do it” – which I have to confess is a well-argued position.
I’d certainly find that easier to justify if it could earn its keep as a mobile writing device, so that was my next experiment … Expand Expanding Close
I posted my first impressions of the iPad Pro yesterday, and having spent much of the past 24 hours mostly using it rather than my MacBook, I now have more of a sense of why Tim Cook thinks it could be a laptop replacement.
While most reviewers dismissed that, and I would certainly join them in doing so when thinking of you or I, it’s easy to forget that we are not normals. We want the power of pro apps, and the ability to do plenty of multitasking. We’re a very different user case to the average non-tech user who rarely ventures further than email, web, chat and a bit of light photo-editing.
I’ve said before that when non-tech friends ask me for advice on which laptop to buy, I quiz them on what they want to do with it and often end up recommending an iPad and keyboard instead. With the increased screen size of the iPad Pro, I can see myself doing that even more often in the future. Sure, it’s expensive for what it is, but it’s a hassle-free, flexible device with the option of built-in LTE. For many, that makes it a better option than a MacBook.
In my usage so far, I’ve been impressed by quite a lot, have some grumbles – and have two key concerns about the possibility of the device replacing my much-loved iPad Air 2. Let’s start with the good news … Expand Expanding Close
Apple’s fourth-generation Apple TV has been available for two weeks now and after using it using it exclusively for all my media consumption, I’ve gathered a handful of thoughts. When Apple announced the device back in September, I was perhaps more excited for it than I was the iPhone 6s. And rightfully so. Tim Cook touted the new Apple TV as the future of television, using superlatives that seemed extreme even for Apple. The device had been a long time coming, too, which further contributed to the hype in my mind that surrounded the release.
As someone who had incredibly high hopes for the fourth-gen Apple TV, what do I think of it two weeks later? Let’s discuss…
This could be dangerous to my wallet. The last time I ordered an Apple gadget, confident that I wouldn’t be keeping it, I turned out to be wrong. Very wrong.
My view of the iPad Pro before mine arrived was very clear: this was a corporate device. It’s going to be great for carrying around lots of A4 documents to view at almost full size. It’s going to be a fantastic presentation tool for one-on-one meetings.
But I didn’t see it as a consumer device. It does nothing a standard sized iPad can’t do – though I was sure my colleague Dom was going to be right in describing it as a killer Netflix machine.
But will it, like the Watch, win me over in my arbitrary one-week trial … ? Expand Expanding Close
I’ve long recommended the MacBook Air to friends who want something a little more capable than an iPad but don’t need their machine to do any heavy lifting. But recent experience has now led me to go rather further …
I’ve written at length about why I’m doggedly sticking to my four-year-old 17-inch MacBook Pro as my main machine. The tl;dr version is that I really like working on a large screen, and I also like having all my files on board when travelling – something I can do because I upgraded it to 2 x 1TB SSDs.
I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that it fell victim to the GPU problem that has afflicted a number of 2011-2013 MacBook Pros. The first symptoms were everything slowing to a crawl when connected to my 27-inch Thunderbolt display, followed by random crashes and then the characteristic graphics distortion that confirmed the logic board as the culprit.
The good news was that Apple would fix it free of charge under its Repair Extension Program. The bad news was that it would take a week, during which time my second Mac – a Mid 2013 11-inch MacBook Air usually used exclusively as a mobile writing device – would have to take over all its duties. I wondered how well it would cope … Expand Expanding Close
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Opinion pieces are intended to provide interesting perspective on an Apple-related topic, and to be an entertaining read. They represent the opinions of their authors, and not of the site as a whole: this is the reason we don’t label them as editorials.
